About Holton Rower

Claiming, “I probably use more paint than anybody in the history of art,” Holton Rower, grandson of Alexander Calder, is best known for his “pour paintings,” created by pouring up to 50 gallons of rainbow-colored paints over variously configured blocks and panels of plywood, and allowing it to spread and pool into textured, psychedelic compositions. He grew up surrounded by art and working in his father’s construction business, where he learned about the qualities of a range of materials. In his own studio, he experiments with many techniques and media, including sculpture, installation, and assemblage. In the early 2000s, Rower began developing his “pour paintings,” which he equates to sculptures. Ranging from small- to large-scale, and appearing as vortexes or the ringed segments of tree trunks, they are records of control and chance, human ingenuity and natural forces.

American, b. 1962, Greenwich Village, New York, based in Brooklyn, New York